A Month Focused on Creative Courage

When I decided to take the leap and start monthly themes on Daily Drafts & Dialogues, I knew I would need all the courage I’d be able to muster. I also realized that if I was feeling this way now, when starting a new creative venture, other writers and creators likely feel this way sometimes too, and on a rolling basis. Because when you’re a creator, beginnings never end but only lead to the next beginning.

Whether it’s a new book, a new proposal, a new query, a new email, a new social media post, a new article, or an entirely new online publication, creative beginnings are inevitable when doing work like ours. And those creative beginnings can be as exciting as they are nerve-wracking and humbling, because they are full of as much promise as they are uncertainty.

I’ve been writing professionally for decades now, but still repeatedly find myself needing to begin again. And I had a feeling there would be others out there who would be able to relate to this very real facet of the creative lifestyle, and wanted, maybe even needed, to discuss it too.

So, I guess you could say that I selected this month’s theme, Creative Courage, based on personal priorities and a vested interest in other writers and creators out there who are also constantly needing to begin again. And it proved to be a productive choice.

Over the course of the month, we were able to cover a lot about creative courage, including when and how to use it, and why, as well as all the different ways our creative courage can connect us.

We unpacked everything from how we need to begin before we ‘feel ready’ to actually feel ready, and why we need to take risks without ever knowing their outcomes beforehand, to the ins and outs of how and why sharing stories connects us. And none of those drafts and dialogues could have happened without you. So, thank you so much for being here and being a part of this growing community!

What follows is a high-level recap of our month of Creative Courage on Daily Drafts & Dialogues.

What We Discussed RE: Creative Courage

In July, we first discussed: Do writers need to feel ready before they begin a new project?

And the answers that came in were roughly split in half. About half of you agreed with some version of “Yes, preparation creates better work” while half of you agreed with some version of “No, starting is how we become ready.” Which likely means that around half of you who responded are ‘plotters’ while the other half are likely ‘pantsers.’ Not too surprising.

What was surprising over the course of our interactions, however, was the realization that many of us are waiting for some sort of permission to begin, albeit via various mediums, even if we aren’t sure whose permission we’re waiting for exactly, or from where we expect that permission to come.

So, after some reflection and discussion, we realized that beginning new projects without official permission and a certain level of uncertainty is unavoidable but also part of the creative process— a process that is in many ways a rewarding process precisely because of its uncertainty and because no one can officially grant us permission to begin but ourselves. Especially once we unpacked some of the responses and words of advice that some of our favorite authors and creators have to some of our most common and deep-seated fears regarding how to come by permission and begin new projects in Why Beginning Feels So Difficult, But Doesn’t Have to Be.

Next, we discussed: Should writers prioritize creative risks or readers’ expectations?

This question didn’t get as much traction as the previous question, but it did prompt a few of us to discuss and better understand the value of balancing artistic vision and creative risks with readers’ expectations, and naturally continued our overarching conversation about creative courage for the month. It allowed us to go a little deeper with what we are risking if and when we decide to prioritize creative risks over readers’ expectations and vice versa.

And while a majority of the few of you who joined this discussion claimed prioritizing creative risks over readers’ expectations was the way to go, you also agreed that remembering readers’ expectations is still essential when it comes to the basics and fundamentals of writing and reading. Otherwise, writers might lose sight of ensuring their readers understand and connect with what they’ve written, and readers might remain unsure whether they’ll be able to connect with what’s written.

Basically, after some reflection and discussion, we realized that artistic integrity and considering readers aren’t necessarily opposing goals but can be complementary ones, and that it’s important to respect both your creative vision and your readers enough to ensure that your vision is communicated in a way they can fully experience. In other words, when taking creative risks, the goal isn’t to choose between artistic vision and readers’ expectations, but to let each strengthen the other.

Leave a comment

Join the Chat

Books Added to Our Creative Courage TBR

In July, some of us were able to add nearly 150 books to our To-Be-Read piles while discussing creative courage.

We unpacked twenty novels about reinvention, creative courage, and choosing a new path in The Art of Beginning Again. Then we discussed books that made us want to write and take creative risks before exploring books that prove creative risks are worth taking and stories that made us see something differently. And topped off the month by poring over Your Essential Nonfiction Library for Creative Courage.

There are too many books that were mentioned to name individually here, so feel free to save and explore those posts full of books anytime you want.

Many of you contributed some amazing titles to be considered and added to these library lists and posts, so thank you! I can’t wait to see what other reading recommendations you have in the future, and where those books end up steering our upcoming discussions and drafts.

Subscribe now

Share

My Reflection on Our Month of Creative Courage

I learned a lot about what creative courage means to me through not only our dialogues and discussions, but through the drafts I created over the course of the month, which were responses to the creative and reflective writing prompts that went out each Saturday.

In my drafts this month, I was able to reflect on the ways beginnings and endings are linked and a poetic risk that forever changed how I view, experience, and want to write poetry. And I determined that I would create everything and anything beautiful and inventive and hopeful and exciting, and most of all, true if I were creating a story I knew someone needed.

I was also able to take creative risks, revisit favorite childhood stories and some difficult memories, and explore uncertainty with a bit of joy and curiosity when I drafted the following flash fiction pieces: Between Two Worlds, Beneath the Armor, and The mostly true hidden story… Then unpacked how creative courage showed up in my own WIP in this month’s Drafting Diaries: Creative Courage installment.

All in all, I would say that one word or feeling I am left with after engaging in our discussions about creative courage, and writing drafts that prompted me to exhibit creative courage, is: pleased.

So, I want to sincerely encourage you to complete some of the prompts in July’s Creative Courage series if you haven’t already, because you might just end up surprising yourself in some unexpected and reaffirming ways you’ll never forget.

• Beginning Before You Feel Ready: Writing Prompts

• Taking Creative Risks: Writing Prompts to Build Creative Courage

• Writing Prompts That Encourage You to Share Your Work

Truly, completing some of these prompts expanded my creative courage in positive ways I never saw coming.

Growing the Community and Looking Ahead

We’re only three weeks into following curated monthly themes with weekly focuses on Daily Drafts & Dialogues, but so far, the response to what we are building here has been overwhelmingly positive and encouraging, and I couldn’t be more thrilled!

We’ve received dozens of thoughtful responses and engagement over the past several weeks and have already gained over fifty new subscribers!

🫶THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE! 🫶

I can’t tell you how much this initial positive response to what we are doing here means to me, and how such engagement is making me more determined than ever to continue building and growing an online reading and writing space that you and I both deserve— a space where writing and reading meet through daily practice, thoughtful discussion, and shared curiosity.

🗣️👥💬SHINE AND THRIVE IN THE CHATS💬👥🗣️

For next month, I want to focus on increasing our engagement in the Drafters Workshop and Dialoguers chat threads. Those are the spaces where we can really dig in and workshop what we’re currently writing (which may or may not be prompted by Saturday’s writing prompts posts), and where we can expand our dialogues and discussions each week. It’s where this growing community will really shine and thrive, so please don’t hesitate to join or share your thoughts and work there. We want to hear from you!

I know that sharing our work and ideas in a new place can sometimes feel intimidating or like we’re shouting into a void, but I am really looking forward to seeing what you contribute there. Whether you join a chat thread to share your responses to Saturday’s prompts or snippets of your other writing, ask questions to spur further dialogue, or want to use it as a space to connect with other writers and support their work, I can’t wait to see what you contribute!

Until our next chat thread goes live (every Saturday and Monday), feel free to check out our Community Chat Guidelines to see how these chats are intended to support you and supplement your writing and reading goals.

📚NEW BOOK CLUB📚

In August, we are introducing the NEW Daily Drafts & Dialogues Book Club!

Tomorrow’s post will include more details about how you can join and what to expect. But for now, know that moving forward some Books posts will be centered around our book club picks, to enhance our discussions centered around monthly themes and the books we’re reading.

So far, the Books posts have been pretty popular, so I want to continue that trend. And I hope having designated books to read together will enrich our monthly and weekly dialogues, as well as really allow us to experience and examine practical applications of what we are discussing in a way that is insightful to our own writing and creative lifestyles.

Again, you’ll learn the ins and outs of the club in tomorrow’s post. But for now, be sure to reserve your copies of the following titles through Libby and the local library or order them so you receive them in time if you want to read with us in August as we explore next month’s theme.

• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

• The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

• The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez

• Possession by A.S. Byatt

Join the Book Club

✨AUGUST THEME: The Creative Life ✨

Next month, we will be discussing The Creative Life and asking ourselves the big question: How do we build a writing life that works for us?

This Saturday we’ll kick off August’s posts with five creative writing prompts and five reflective prompts that will get us started thinking about and exploring how we can and should make space for our creative lives, especially when it seems difficult to do sometimes.

The Creative Life Writing Collection will also be available Saturday!

Inside this month’s collection:

✨30 guided writing prompts ✨craft explorations and tips ✨reflection exercises ✨curated reading recommendations ✨3 month-long creative writing challenges

I can’t wait to see what our drafts and dialogues uncover next month when we unpack what it means to build a writing life that works for us over the weeks, months, and years ahead. And I’m truly looking forward to your next comment or chat reply! Until then, happy writing and reading.

Share

Buy me a coffee to say thanks

It’s not too late to go more in depth with July’s Creative Courage theme with the Creative Courage Writing Collection.

This writing collection is designed to help you explore creative courage from different angles: discovering your voice, strengthening your craft, experimenting with new approaches, and reflecting on the writer you are becoming. It invites you to go much deeper into the internal work of creativity with 30 guided writing prompts and craft exercises, reflections, as well as three options for guided monthly writing challenges for those who want to go even further than that.

Note: Paid subscribers have access to the full archive, including previous writing prompts, discussions, and reading lists, as well as full access to the community chat and Daily Drafters Exclusives writing collections.

Get 30-Day Free Trial

Share Daily Drafts & Dialogues

© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 3: Sharing the Work

What I wrote below is based on the following reflective writing prompt included in Saturday’s Writing Prompts That Encourage You to Share Your Work post.

Prompt: What would you create if you knew someone needed your story?

Why did I choose it?

I chose this prompt because it touches on the dialogue we had last week: Should writers prioritize creative risks or readers’ expectations? Because if you’re considering someone who might need your story, you’re also considering a potential readership, and potentially making assumptions about them and what you should write or create for them as well. Though the connotation of the question for today’s reflective prompt is obviously different. Where the dialogue question from last week seems more technical and strategic, today’s reflective prompt seems more sentimental and subjective. And I find that interesting and worthy of reflection, as it poses another question: Are there times when prioritizing an intended audience is more appropriate than others, especially if that intended audience needs something? Though how will you ever know who needs a story that only you can write, or something that only you can create?

I also chose this prompt because, like many writers and creators, I think about who might be needing a story that only I can tell due to my unique viewpoint and experience from time to time. Not because I want to impress them or ‘help’ them, but because I want my work to resonate with them in a way that makes them feel understood and seen somehow.

If you’re an avid reader and writer like me, you know what I mean by that. You know what it feels like to read or experience something that reaches you at exactly the right mood and time in your life. That book that makes you want to write and take creative risks when you’re feeling unsure about yourself and your ideas. That story that brings you a moment of joy when you’re feeling overwhelmed, or brings excitement when you’re feeling off or bored. Those pieces of art and stories that make you see the world a little differently. And how they often stay with you for a lifetime, simply because you read or experienced them at the exact time you needed to in your life.

My Response

First, today’s prompt nudged me to ask myself: Who would need your story? And how can you determine this?

And the truth is, I’m not entirely sure how to answer that. Not really. At least, not when I am considering all the people across the planet who are living now and aren’t yet born. Because my stories will inevitably outlast me, even if no one reads them today, or only read them today and not decades from now. There are also too many variables to consider when weighing those questions that I have limited control over, as I have limited control over others’ life circumstances or opinions of my work, and whether they even encounter my work when I want them to.

So, prioritizing readers’ expectations in this context seems like a losing venture, or one that requires an incredible amount of guessing and machine-level yet subjective calculations that even AI won’t be able to compute because readers’ expectations are central and connected to the humanness innate to storytelling itself though we are often loathe to admit it in our current age of quantifying and commodifying everything. Because if we didn’t have readers expecting something on some level, even if those readers only include ourselves, would we ever feel the compulsion or responsibility to tell stories and understand them at all?

Seriously, how am I to know if a sixteen-year-old girl living 50 years from now, or an elderly man who currently lives on the other side of the globe, will or will not connect with my work, even need it, at the precise moment they encounter it, or whether they will encounter it at all? And even if I did, how would I know what to write for them and what they need at precise moments in time when I am not them and never will be?

At the same time, I can assume those who share similar demographics as me are more likely to connect with my story and what I write, but that isn’t usually the case most of the time. At least, not when my photo isn’t readily available to look at. And not when AI and newer technologies are complicating and upending those demographics at record levels as we speak. Meaning, I am assuming women my age, living close to where I’m living, with my education and background, etc. might need different stories than what I am telling in future decades, as well as today. And I am also assuming that they aren’t some homogenous group without individual needs and storylines themselves.

In other words, considering readers who might need my story got me nowhere definitive fast, and just seemed to confuse things more. But the connotation behind today’s reflective question itself still presents an ineffable pull toward something worth paying attention to and considering because at the end of the day we all want to both experience and create things that deeply matter… to someone. Don’t we? Even and especially when it’s getting harder and harder to determine who that ‘someone’ is. Because why else would we feel called to create and tell stories in the grand scheme of things?

So, I started considering who my work might matter to most, which still felt like a parallel fool’s errand, until doing so made me remember the following advice in last week’s post, Balancing Artistic Vision and Creative Risks with Readers’ Expectations:

“Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person — a real person you know or an imagined person.” — John Steinbeck

“The duty of the writer is to make the reader see.” — Joseph Conrad

Weighing those tidbits of advice together got me out of that pattern of circular questioning I was in because it inevitably prompted me to ask: Who is the one reader I would want to make ‘see’ something? For which I do have a definitive answer: My previous self at any age.

The only person I can practically and logically feel responsible for making ‘see’ anything via my writing is my previous self at any age. So, what if I wrote for her and what she needs? Because she is the only person I know for sure will ever really need to hear my story one hundred percent of the time. Whether that story, my story, her story, our story, is contained in the fiction, poetry, or essays I write, what I create should make her see or experience something resonant and meaningful, as there is always a bit of her inside of me as well. And I love remembering the beautiful symmetry of that.

So, what would I create if I knew my previous self (the only ‘someone’ I will ever know for sure needs anything I write or create) needed to experience my, our story? Everything and anything beautiful and inventive and hopeful and exciting, and most of all, true.

Join the Conversation

What’s your answer to this question, or any of the other prompts in Saturday’s Writing Prompts That Encourage You to Share Your Work post?

Leave a comment or join this week’s Drafters Workshop chat, where we’re still discussing creative courage and sharing our work for the rest of the week before we move on to The Creative Life next week.

Whether you join the chat to share your responses, ask questions, or connect with other writers and support their work, we look forward to your contributions!

Please don’t forget to like and share this post with your network so others can see it too. Thanks in advance. I hope to see you in the comments or chat threads sometime soon!

Join the Chat

Leave a comment

Share

Continue Exploring July’s Creative Courage Theme

This Week: Sharing the Work

Writing Prompts That Encourage You to Share Your Work

The mostly true hidden story…

Drafting Diaries: Creative Courage

Your Essential Nonfiction Library for Creative Courage

Popular Posts from Week 2: Taking Creative Risks

Taking Creative Risks: Writing Prompts to Build Creative Courage

Beneath the Armor

A Poetic Risk

Popular Posts from Week 1: Beginning Before You Feel Ready

Beginning Before You Feel Ready: Writing Prompts

Why Beginning Feels So Difficult, But Doesn’t Have to Be

Books That Made Me Want to Write and Take Creative Risks

Subscribe now

Buy me a coffee to say thanks

Consider going more in depth with this month’s theme with July’s Creative Courage Writing Collection.

The writing collection is designed to help you explore creative courage from different angles: discovering your voice, strengthening your craft, experimenting with new approaches, and reflecting on the writer you are becoming.

The free posts that will be published every day this month will explore the outward side of creative courage—beginning, risking, and sharing— and should complement this collection quite well, which invites you to go much deeper into the internal work of creativity with 30 guided writing prompts and craft exercises, reflections, as well as three options for guided monthly writing challenges for those who want to go even further than that.

Note: Paid subscribers have access to the full archive, including previous writing prompts, discussions, and reading lists, as well as full access to the community chat and Daily Drafters Exclusives writing collections.

Get 30-Day Free Trial

Share Daily Drafts & Dialogues

© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 3: Sharing the Work

As we dig into this week’s focus on ‘Sharing the Work’ as we wind down this month’s discussion of ‘Creative Courage,’ I thought it would be a good idea to share a list of nonfiction books with you that are essential to not only strengthening your own creative courage, but to the craftsmanship of writing overall, regardless of what you’re interested in writing.

You’ll want to add most of the nonfiction books listed below to your personal library on writing because they’ll inspire you to remain creative while also encouraging you to find the joy you’ll need when executing some of the most challenging parts of practicing your craft: drafting, taking creative risks, revising, and sharing your work. They include books on practicing a creative mindset, psychology, journaling, creativity, habit formation, and the writing life. And chances are good you’ve probably read one or two of them already. But chances are also good that you’ll be able to find at least a handful more to add to your writer’s library too.

Full disclaimer: This post was created with the intention for you to scan, pull titles from, share, save, and revisit during those moments you’ll need some creative inspiration or advice or encouragement to keep writing. And if you’re like me, this is probably most days. Because even when the writing flow is going well, it never hurts to have a well-thought-out and inspiring work by another writer who understands the true struggle and beauty of channeling creative courage and living a creative life to its fullest within reach.

What follows are some essential books about finding the courage to create meaningful work despite fear, perfectionism, uncertainty, rejection, and self-doubt, organized by how they will assist you in your writing journey. Make note of the ‘Best read when…’ details for each.

They encourage us to not only be the best writers and creatives we can be but offer some of the most useful and practical insight and guidance available to writers that currently exists. Jot down some of the titles you want to add to your own library, then tell us in the comments if there are any additional titles in your own library we should add to ours.

📚SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THE POST TO SEE INFORMATION ABOUT THE NEW DAILY DRAFTS & DIALOGUES BOOK CLUB 📚

Creative Courage Through Mindset and Philosophy

Books about learning to THINK LIKE A CREATOR rather than a perfectionist.

• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert argues that perfectionism is simply fear wearing elegant clothes. Gilbert presents creativity as a playful partnership with ideas rather than a painful test of worth, encouraging writers to approach inspiration with curiosity instead of anxiety. Best read when you’re feeling paralyzed by perfectionism, afraid to begin a project, or need permission to create without obsessing over the outcome.

• The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield frames resistance as the universal enemy of every creative person. The book explores the psychological forces that keep artists from doing their work and offers a disciplined framework for overcoming procrastination, fear, and self-doubt. Best read when you’re struggling to write consistently, battling procrastination, or trying to establish a sustainable writing practice.

• The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin explores creativity as a way of living rather than merely producing art and emphasizes curiosity, attention, and joy in the creative process. Through reflections on observation, intuition, and openness, Rubin encourages creators to see inspiration as something cultivated in everyday life. Best read when you want to reconnect with the joy of creating, find fresh inspiration, or deepen your creative mindset beyond the mechanics of writing.

• Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland examines why artists quit and how to continue making work despite inevitable disappointment and imperfection. The book explores the emotional realities of making art and offers practical wisdom for persevering through doubt, criticism, and creative setbacks. Best read when you’re discouraged by slow progress, comparing yourself to others, or questioning whether to continue writing.

• Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces by David Biespiel argues that genuine artistic breakthroughs emerge through experimentation, uncertainty, and repeated failure. The book explores the evolving identities writers adopt throughout their creative lives and encourages embracing uncertainty as an essential part of artistic growth. Best read when you’re ready to push beyond familiar habits, experiment with your craft, or redefine yourself as a writer.

• Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of the Writer’s Life by Bret Lott reflects on writing as an act of courage, attention, and willingness to risk rejection. Through essays and reflections on the writing life, Lott examines the habits, mindset, and commitment required to pursue meaningful creative work. Best read before beginning a new writing project or whenever you need encouragement to write with honesty and vulnerability despite fear of rejection.

• If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland is a timeless defense of originality and individual voice that insists everyone possesses creative potential. Combining practical advice with philosophical encouragement, Ueland inspires writers to trust their instincts, cultivate imagination, and write with authenticity. Best read at the beginning of your writing journey or anytime you’ve lost confidence in your unique voice and creative abilities.

Courage Against Perfectionism and Fear

Books that focus specifically on overcoming self-doubt, procrastination, creative paralysis, and the fear of not being good enough, and help writers move from hesitation to consistent creative action.

• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott is the classic antidote to perfectionism, famous for advocating “shitty first drafts” and focusing on one manageable step at a time. Through practical advice and personal stories, Lamott shows writers how to make progress by embracing imperfection and breaking overwhelming projects into small, achievable steps. Best read when you’re staring down a blank page, overwhelmed by a large writing project, or trapped by the need to get everything right the first time.

• The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear by Ralph Keyes explores the emotional fears every writer experiences and offers practical ways to continue writing anyway. Drawing from interviews and examples from accomplished authors, the book reveals that fear is a universal part of the writing life rather than a sign of inadequacy. Best read when fear of criticism, rejection, or failure is keeping you from sharing, or even starting, your work.

• Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write with Confidence by William Kenower helps writers shift attention away from self-judgment toward authentic expression. Through mindset shifts and practical exercises, Kenower encourages writers to focus on curiosity, confidence, and connection with readers instead of seeking external validation. Best read when your inner critic has become louder than your creative voice or you’re struggling with self-confidence.

• Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction and Other Dilemmas in the Writer’s Life by Bonnie Friedman examines the psychological obstacles that prevent writers from trusting themselves. Blending memoir, psychology, and writing advice, Friedman explores anxiety, insecurity, and perfectionism while offering ways to develop a more trusting relationship with the creative process. Best read when anxiety, comparison, or self-doubt has made writing feel emotionally exhausting.

• Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life by Dani Shapiro is a compassionate reflection on sustaining a writing life through uncertainty, disappointment, and change. Combining personal essays with practical insights, Shapiro explores what it means to remain creatively committed through life’s inevitable transitions and setbacks. Best read when you’re rebuilding your writing practice after a setback or trying to stay creatively grounded during periods of uncertainty.

• Part Wild: A Writer’s Guide to Harnessing the Creative Power of Resistance by Deb Norton shows how resistance, fear, and vulnerability can become powerful creative fuel instead of obstacles. The book reframes emotional discomfort as an essential ingredient of meaningful artistic work and encourages writers to embrace rather than avoid vulnerability. Best read when fear feels unavoidable and you want to transform it into momentum instead of letting it stop you.

• Writing Without a Parachute: The Art of Freefall by Barbara Turner-Vesselago introduces an immersive freewriting practice designed to bypass internal censorship and encourage fearless honesty. The book offers guided techniques that help writers write intuitively without constant editing or second-guessing themselves. Best read when you’re overediting every sentence or want to rediscover spontaneity and creative flow.

• The Zen of Creative Imperfection by Alan O’Hashi blends mindfulness with creativity to encourage completion over flawless execution. Through reflections on presence, acceptance, and artistic practice, O’Hashi demonstrates how letting go of perfection can lead to more meaningful creative work. Best read when perfectionism is preventing you from finishing projects or enjoying the writing process.

• The Perfectionism Workbook: Proven Strategies to End Procrastination, Accept Yourself, and Achieve Your Goals by Taylor Newendorp uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) exercises to reduce perfectionism and procrastination. Filled with structured activities and evidence-based strategies, the book helps readers identify perfectionistic thought patterns and replace them with healthier habits. Best read when you want concrete exercises and practical tools, not inspiration alone, to overcome perfectionism.

• The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown encourages wholehearted living through vulnerability, authenticity, and self-acceptance that naturally supports creative work. Drawing on years of research into shame, courage, and resilience, Brown explains how embracing imperfection creates the emotional freedom necessary for creativity. Best read when your self-worth has become tied to achievement and you need to reconnect with authentic, wholehearted creativity.

  Share

Creative Recovery and Self-Discovery

Books that help writers rediscover their artistic identity, rebuild trust in their own voice, and reconnect with the deeper reasons they create. They are especially valuable during periods of burnout, transition, or creative uncertainty.

• The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron combines journaling, Artist Dates, and creative exercises to unblock artistic confidence. Through its renowned twelve-week program, Cameron guides readers in identifying creative barriers, recovering from self-doubt, and developing sustainable habits that nurture imagination and self-expression. Best read when you’re recovering from creative burnout, feeling disconnected from your artistic identity, or looking to establish a regular creative practice.

• The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life by Julia Cameron treats writing as an innate human capacity rather than an elite talent, encouraging readers to reclaim their voice. Blending personal reflections with practical exercises, Cameron challenges limiting beliefs about who “gets” to be a writer and inspires readers to write with greater freedom and authenticity. Best read when you’ve convinced yourself you’re “not a real writer” or need encouragement to trust that your voice deserves to be heard.

• Writing Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd explores writing as a spiritual and personal journey toward authenticity. Through essays, reflections, and writing practices, Kidd invites writers to cultivate self-awareness, embrace vulnerability, and view creativity as a path to deeper personal growth. Best read when you’re seeking greater meaning in your writing or hoping to align your creative work with your authentic self.

• The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad uses reflective journaling prompts to transform uncertainty, grief, and transition into creative discovery. Featuring thoughtful prompts and contributions inspired by artists and writers, the book demonstrates how reflective writing can foster healing, resilience, and renewed creative insight. Best read during major life transitions, periods of grief or uncertainty, or whenever journaling can help you reconnect with your creativity and inner voice.

The Daily Practice of Writing

Books that emphasize how a sustainable writing life is built through consistent practice rather than occasional inspiration. They encourage writers to develop habits, routines, and perspectives that make creativity a regular part of everyday life.

• Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg encourages freewriting, mindfulness, and trusting instinct over internal criticism. Blending Zen practice with practical writing advice, Goldberg teaches writers to silence the inner critic, write with honesty, and discover authentic ideas through continuous practice. Best read when you’re trying to establish a daily writing habit, overcome self-censorship, or reconnect with the simple joy of putting words on the page.

• Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life by Natalie Goldberg expands her philosophy by encouraging radical honesty and deeper creative risk. Through essays, writing prompts, and reflections, Goldberg challenges writers to move beyond polished surfaces and write with greater emotional truth, curiosity, and vulnerability. Best read when you’re comfortable with a writing routine but want to deepen your voice, take greater creative risks, or write with more authenticity.

• The Writing Life by Annie Dillard meditates on the beauty, difficulty, obsession, and discipline required for serious writing. Through lyrical essays and personal reflections, Dillard explores the sacrifices, rewards, and enduring commitment involved in pursuing a life devoted to writing. Best read when you’re reflecting on what it truly means to commit yourself to writing or need perspective during a challenging season of creative work.

• The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp demonstrates that creativity is built through deliberate routines, preparation, and consistency rather than inspiration alone. Drawing on decades of experience as a choreographer, Tharp provides practical exercises and strategies for developing the habits that support sustained creative excellence across any artistic discipline. Best read when you’re ready to replace waiting for inspiration with intentional routines that help you write consistently and finish more projects.

Learning from Writers’ Journals, Diaries, and Letters

The following journals and books offer an intimate look at the private thoughts, struggles, and daily practices of accomplished writers, revealing that self-doubt, creative uncertainty, false starts, and persistence are universal parts of the artistic process. Rather than offering traditional writing instruction, they remind readers that even literary masters wrestled with the same fears and challenges every writer faces.

• A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf presents selections from Woolf’s personal journals, chronicling her creative process, literary ambitions, and reflections on the challenges of writing. The diary provides a candid portrait of the discipline, self-questioning, and perseverance behind some of the twentieth century’s greatest literature. Best read when you need reassurance that even brilliant writers questioned their work and struggled through the creative process.

• Journal of Solitude by May Sarton reflects on the relationship between solitude, creativity, aging, and emotional resilience. Through deeply personal journal entries, Sarton explores how a rich inner life can sustain both artistic work and personal growth. Best read when you’re learning to embrace solitude as a source of creative strength rather than isolation.

• Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947–1963 by Susan Sontag chronicles Sontag’s intellectual and artistic development from adolescence into adulthood. Filled with reflections on literature, philosophy, identity, and ambition, the journals reveal how one of America’s most influential thinkers cultivated her creative mind. Best read when you’re developing your own artistic identity or seeking inspiration from a writer’s lifelong commitment to learning.

• The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath offers an unfiltered account of Plath’s creative ambitions, insecurities, relationships, and relentless pursuit of artistic excellence. Her journals reveal the emotional complexity behind her poetry and fiction while documenting the realities of balancing creativity with everyday life. Best read when you’re wrestling with self-doubt, perfectionism, or the emotional intensity of the creative process.

• The Diaries of Franz Kafka provides an intimate record of Kafka’s struggles with writing, work, self-criticism, and artistic purpose. His journals demonstrate that extraordinary literary achievement often exists alongside profound uncertainty and persistent creative frustration. Best read when you’re convinced your self-doubt means you’re not meant to be a writer.

• Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck documents the daily writing process behind one of America’s most celebrated novels. Through candid journal entries, Steinbeck records his goals, frustrations, fatigue, and determination, offering a remarkable behind-the-scenes view of how a masterpiece was written one day at a time. Best read when you’re drafting a long project and need encouragement to keep showing up despite setbacks or slow progress.

• Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters by John Steinbeck collects the daily letters Steinbeck wrote to his editor while composing East of Eden. The correspondence captures his evolving thoughts about craft, discipline, family, and the emotional highs and lows of writing a major novel. Best read when you’re working on an ambitious project and want insight into the mindset of a writer creating one of his most personal works.

• The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien gathers Tolkien’s correspondence about his creative process, mythology, language invention, and the development of Middle-earth. The letters illuminate both the painstaking craftsmanship and joyful imagination behind his enduring works, while revealing the practical realities of a lifelong writing career. Best read when you’re building expansive fictional worlds or looking for encouragement that meaningful creative work develops over many years.

• No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters by Ursula K. Le Guin is a collection of essays and reflections on writing, aging, literature, community, and everyday life. Written with Le Guin’s characteristic wisdom and wit, the book demonstrates how curiosity and thoughtful observation continue to nourish creativity throughout a lifetime. Best read when you’re seeking perspective on sustaining a creative life over the long term rather than chasing quick success.

Writing Exercises and Creative Play

The books here encourage writers to reduce fear through experimentation, curiosity, and playful exploration. By shifting the focus away from perfection and toward discovery, they help writers build confidence, unlock creativity, and enjoy the process of writing again.

• Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith turns the blank page into a playground by inviting readers to embrace messiness and imperfection. Through unconventional prompts that encourage readers to scribble, tear, stain, and otherwise “wreck” the pages, Smith challenges the fear of making mistakes and demonstrates that creativity flourishes when perfection is abandoned. Best read when you’re feeling creatively stuck, afraid of making mistakes, or need a playful reminder that not every page has to be perfect.

• Find Your Voice: A Guided Journal for Writing Your Truth by Angie Thomas provides guided prompts and practical exercises that help writers discover authentic stories. Drawing on her own experiences as a bestselling author, Thomas encourages readers to explore personal experiences, values, and perspectives while developing confidence in their unique voice and storytelling abilities. Best read when you’re searching for your authentic voice, brainstorming story ideas, or looking for guided inspiration to begin writing.

• Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer is an imaginative, highly visual guide that encourages fearless experimentation with storytelling, worldbuilding, and narrative possibility. Filled with illustrations, essays, interviews, and creative exercises from accomplished writers and artists, the book inspires readers to take creative risks and approach storytelling with greater imagination and curiosity. Best read when you’re developing speculative, fantasy, or science fiction projects, or anytime you want to stretch your imagination, experiment with new storytelling techniques, and rediscover the joy of creative play.

Craft with Courage

Books that emphasize how developing technical skill and embracing artistic risk go hand in hand. They encourage writers to master the craft of storytelling while remaining bold enough to challenge conventions, pursue truth, and trust their own creative instincts.

• Damn Fine Story: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative by Chuck Wendig blends energetic storytelling instruction with encouragement to break conventions intentionally. Through humor, practical examples, and accessible craft advice, Wendig explores the essential elements of compelling fiction (from character and conflict to structure and theme) while reminding writers that rules are most valuable when they understand how and why to bend them. Best read when you’re strengthening your storytelling fundamentals, revising a draft, or looking for permission to take bold creative risks with confidence.

• On Moral Fiction by John Gardner challenges writers to pursue artistic excellence through fiction that seeks truth and meaning. Blending literary criticism with philosophical reflection, Gardner argues that enduring stories engage readers not only through skillful craftsmanship but also through their capacity to illuminate the complexities of human experience. Best read when you’re thinking deeply about the purpose of your writing, exploring theme, or striving to create stories with lasting emotional and moral resonance.

• The Blue Lantern by Colette demonstrates how close observation and lived experience become enduring literature. Through essays and reflections rich with sensory detail and emotional insight, Colette reveals how careful attention to ordinary moments can be transformed into extraordinary writing. Best read when you’re seeking inspiration from everyday life, hoping to sharpen your observational skills, or learning how to turn personal experience into vivid, memorable prose.

• Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg challenges conventional ideas about writing instruction and encourages writers to think more deeply about sentences, structure, and the choices behind every word. Through concise reflections and practical observations, Klinkenborg explores how writers can develop greater awareness of language, break free from formulaic approaches, and create prose that feels precise, intentional, and alive. Best read when you’re refining your craft, questioning writing rules, or looking to strengthen the clarity, rhythm, and emotional impact of your sentences.

Sharing Your Work and the Writing Life

Books to help writers find the courage to move from private creation to public expression. They explore the emotional realities of sharing creative work, navigating revision and rejection, building an audience, and sustaining a writing career with resilience and authenticity.

• Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered by Austin Kleon reframes self-promotion as generously sharing your creative process rather than simply promoting finished work. Through practical advice and memorable illustrations, Kleon encourages creators to document their journey, contribute to creative communities, and build meaningful connections by openly sharing what they are learning. Best read when you’re ready to publish your work, build an audience, or overcome the fear of being seen as a writer.

• The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner explores the emotional realities of revision, rejection, and publishing. Drawing on her experience as a literary editor, Lerner offers candid insights into the personalities, struggles, and habits of writers while demystifying the publishing process and encouraging resilience through its inevitable challenges. Best read when you’re revising a manuscript, preparing to query agents or publishers, or recovering from rejection.

• First You Write: The Worst Way to Become an Almost Famous Author And The Best Advice I Got While Doing It by Joni Rodgers offers a candid and humorous look at surviving the writing profession with persistence and resilience. Through personal stories and practical observations, Rodgers explores the realities of balancing creativity, deadlines, rejection, and the business of writing while maintaining a sense of humor and determination. Best read when you’re pursuing writing professionally or need reassurance that perseverance matters more than perfection.

Creative Systems and Sustainable Practice

Books that focus on building reliable habits, systems, and ways of thinking that support lifelong creativity. Rather than relying on inspiration alone, they help writers create environments and routines that make consistent creative work possible.

• Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential by Tiago Forte introduces a practical system for capturing, organizing, and reconnecting ideas. Using his PARA method and knowledge-management framework, Forte demonstrates how writers can build an external repository for notes, research, and inspiration that reduces overwhelm and makes creative thinking more efficient. Best read when your notes, ideas, or research feel scattered and you want a reliable system for supporting long-term writing projects.

• Shut Up and Write: The No-Nonsense, No B.S. Guide to Getting Words on the Page by Natasha Khullar Relph offers straightforward strategies for building a consistent writing practice. Through practical advice on productivity, mindset, and habit formation, Relph helps writers overcome procrastination, establish routines, and spend more time writing instead of waiting for inspiration. Best read when you’re struggling to write consistently, establish a routine, or make writing a regular part of your life.

• The Art of Creative Thinking by Rod Judkins presents practical exercises and unconventional thinking techniques that cultivate originality as a repeatable practice. Drawing on examples from art, design, literature, and innovation, Judkins encourages readers to challenge assumptions, embrace curiosity, and generate fresh ideas through deliberate creative habits. Best read when you’re looking to spark new ideas, escape predictable thinking, or develop a more inventive and flexible creative mindset.

Final Thoughts on Mastering Creative Courage and An Invitation

The greatest lesson across this Essential Nonfiction Library for Creative Courage to note is that creativity is not reserved for those who feel fearless but belongs to those who are willing to create despite their fears.

The writers, artists, and thinkers of these books reveal over and over again that creative courage is not a personality trait you are either born with or without. It is a practice built through small, repeated choices that include showing up, experimenting, revising, learning, and beginning again.

Please remember that you do not have to wait until you feel ready to begin. Creative confidence often arrives because you have taken action and doesn’t usually work the other way around. Every imperfect draft, unfinished idea, rejection, and creative setback provides information that helps you grow and sustain your creative practice. The goal behind living a sustainable creative life is not to avoid failure or uncertainty, but to develop the resilience to continue creating and writing through those failures and uncertainties time and time again.

The most important practices these books will help you carry forward are simple but worth remembering and reading about often, so they’re always fresh in your mind each time you sit down to write:

• Create before you critique. Allow ideas to exist before asking whether they are ‘good enough.’

• Embrace imperfect beginnings. Messy first drafts are not failures but the foundation of meaningful work.

• Build creative practice instead of dependence on inspiration. Consistent effort creates opportunities for creativity to appear.

• Protect your curiosity. Reading, observing, questioning, and exploring are essential parts of the creative process.

• Learn from resistance. The projects that challenge you most often point toward the work that will help you grow.

• Finish and share your work. Completion builds skill, confidence, and courage in ways that endless perfection never can.

• Study the struggles behind great work. The journals, letters, and reflections of accomplished creators remind us that doubt and uncertainty are part of every artistic journey.

• Treat creativity as a lifelong journey. Creative courage is not something you achieve once but something you get the opportunity to practice every time you return to the page.

Ultimately, the writers in this collection remind us that creativity is less about producing flawless work and more about developing the willingness to keep showing up. Your voice becomes stronger the more you develop it and use it. Your creative confidence grows through the creative actions you take. And your writing craft only improves through diligent and intentional practice.

Save this collection as a resource to revisit whenever you need encouragement, inspiration, or a reminder to keep creating— especially as we explore The Creative Life next month!

And if you know a writer, artist, or creative person who could use support in overcoming their fear, perfectionism, or self-doubt right now, share this post with them!

Sometimes the right book, idea, or reminder at the right time can provide the encouragement someone needs to begin or even begin again.

Do you have any books to add to this library? Leave a comment so we know about it.

Leave a comment

Join the Chat

Share

📚Read with us!📚

In August, the NEW Daily Drafts & Dialogues Book Club will be reading the following books as we explore the month’s theme: The Creative Life.

Now is the time to reserve your copies through Libby and the local library or order them so you receive them in time.

Stay tuned for Friday’s Books post for all the details, reading schedules, and Buddy Read links to join book discussions!

Week 1 (Aug. 1-7) : Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Why we’re reading it: As a massive global bestseller with hundreds of thousands of five-star reviews, this book will likely appeal to a lot of readers interested in exploring The Creative Life. Because it is widely circulated, readers who are not writers can easily grab a copy and will be swept away by the fast pacing and emotional drama, while readers who are writers will appreciate the deep dive into the mechanics of collaboration.

Week 2 (Aug. 8-14): The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Why we’re reading it: By adding Plath’s actual diaries alongside the three novels we’ll be reading this month, we’ll be able to explore a fascinating real-world application of The Creative Life. This will allow readers to contrast the fictional depictions of artistic struggle in Possession and The Cemetery of Untold Stories with the raw, unfiltered creative doubts, perfectionism, and habits of a real literary icon.

Week 3 (Aug. 15-21): The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez

Why we’re reading it: Written by an acclaimed Dominican-American author, this novel follows a writer who inherits a plot of land in the Dominican Republic and decides to literally bury her unfinished manuscripts and drafts there. It is a beautiful, magical realism-infused look at how stories refuse to stay dead, giving readers a vibrant perspective on cultural storytelling and creative legacy.

Week 4 (Aug. 22-28): Possession by A.S. Byatt

Why we’re reading it: This Booker Prize-winning masterpiece follows two modern scholars unearthing a secret romance between two Victorian poets. It is a masterclass in structural ambition. The text is packed with faux-Victorian poetry, letters, and academic diaries that will leave writers swooning over their sheer craft and stylistic mimicry, offering a perfect culmination to The Creative Life monthly series.

Please Note:

Moving forward, the NEW Daily Drafts & Dialogues Book Club will read and discuss books that align with monthly themes on Daily Drafts & Dialogues to offer more in-depth opportunities to see how authors embody, explore, and practice those themes we’re covering and discussing. Each month, there will be four book options to choose from. And each book option will include a Buddy Read that you can join. But you can also choose to read only one or two of the books with us, if that’s your preference. Reading schedules will be included in Friday’s Books post and will offer you options that allow you to read what you want and at your own pace.

I look forward to reading with you!

Join the Book Club

Continue Exploring July’s Creative Courage Theme

This Week: Sharing the Work

Writing Prompts That Encourage You to Share Your Work

The mostly true hidden story…

Drafting Diaries: Creative Courage

ICYM Week 2: Taking Creative Risks

Taking Creative Risks: Writing Prompts to Build Creative Courage

Beneath the Armor

Should writers prioritize creative risks or readers’ expectations?

20 Books That Prove Creative Risks Are Worth Taking

A Poetic Risk

Balancing Artistic Vision and Creative Risks with Readers’ Expectations

Stories I’ve Read Recently That Made Me See Something Differently

Popular Posts from Week 1: Beginning Before You Feel Ready

Beginning Before You Feel Ready: Writing Prompts

Why Beginning Feels So Difficult, But Doesn’t Have to Be

Books That Made Me Want to Write and Take Creative Risks

Subscribe now

Buy me a coffee to say thanks

Consider going more in depth with this month’s theme with July’s Creative Courage Writing Collection.

The writing collection is designed to help you explore creative courage from different angles: discovering your voice, strengthening your craft, experimenting with new approaches, and reflecting on the writer you are becoming.

The free posts that will be published every day this month will explore the outward side of creative courage—beginning, risking, and sharing— and should complement this collection quite well, which invites you to go much deeper into the internal work of creativity with 30 guided writing prompts and craft exercises, reflections, as well as three options for guided monthly writing challenges for those who want to go even further than that.

Note: Paid subscribers have access to the full archive, including previous writing prompts, discussions, and reading lists, as well as full access to the community chat and Daily Drafters Exclusives writing collections.

Get 30-Day Free Trial

Share Daily Drafts & Dialogues

© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 3: Sharing the Work

As we’re wrapping up July, I can’t help but think of all the ways exploring creative courage over the course of the month has helped shape the debut novel I’m working on, and how it’s really given me permission to trust my own writing process and instincts and take more intentional creative risks.

Our discussions have also reaffirmed my belief in the power of authentic storytelling and have allowed me to reflect on the best ways to tell the stories only I can tell, in the ways that only I can tell them, so that I can share them with other readers who will connect with them in meaningful ways. I hope it’s done the same for you, too!

What follows are some of the details of my current work in progress (WIP), then some notes on how July’s exploration of creative courage has influenced its current evolution.

Please note that sharing these details doesn’t come easy for someone like me, who suffers from chronic perfectionism and cares about what others think far more than she will regularly admit aloud. Yet I’m doing it anyway because, more and more, I am starting to value what happens when I trust myself enough to take creative risks like the ones present in my WIP, then share what they allow me to create with others. And how doing that is also allowing me to build a community of fellow writers I deeply admire and trust, for which I’m forever grateful.

I am sharing these details to build excitement around my WIP, of course, but also to encourage other writers to take that next leap in their creative journey as well, especially if they are just starting out or find themselves at a critical crossroad. Take this as your reminder that it’s never too late to begin, take a creative risk, or pivot into the writing you were meant to create and share.

Work In Progress Notes and Updates

Working Title: The Great Integration

Genre: Speculative Literary Dystopian Fiction

Estimated Release: March 2027 (Book 1 of 3)

Working Synopsis: Forthcoming

Writing a synopsis for a novel that is witty, engaging, and accurately represents the major plot points of the novel is hard, especially when you’re still in the beginning stages of writing that novel. There are so many things that may or may not remain after the revising and editing stages are complete, and both are a long way off. So, even a working synopsis for my current WIP will have to wait a little longer, though I hope to have one within the next couple of months.

But here is what I can tell you about my WIP for now, based on what I know about it.

• It will be a trilogy. I currently have the entire series outlined, as well as the world I’m building for it, but have only worked on drafts for the first book at this point.

• The series will include a dual-layered structure, with one that includes a future narrative with an AI that takes place around 2086, and another that takes place in the near future around 2050 but serves as a more historical timeline throughout the series itself. The two layers will work in tandem with each other and the story’s main arc and plot points and will likely include alternating chapters.

• There will be cyberwarfare and factions and people will choose sides and alliances, but in complicated ways that may not be expected.

• The world in the novels will include speculative elements that are still believable in today’s world yet will speak to the growing concerns surrounding AI and its unprecedented growth and applications on both a technological and sociological level, as well as a literary one.

• There will be complex characters readers can really root for and care about, as well as characters they might despise.

• There will also be plenty of subterfuge and mysteries and passion and longing and love.

Let me know what else you want to know about my WIP in the comments so I can be sure to include details about what you want to know in future posts.

Leave a comment

Behind-the-Scenes Preview: Mood Board for Book 1, Chapter 1

When working on my WIP this month, how did I answer July’s Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

What did I begin?

I began a new draft of Book 1 in July, which was a HARD decision to make because I have already drafted the first 50,000 words or so of this book three times now (not counting previous iterations of this project), with one attempt reaching around 75,000 words. Before, each time I was working on a new draft, I ended up losing my momentum and chasing some other shinier idea instead, letting my perfectionism dictate things for me. But not this time. This time, I am committed to trusting the idea I am pursuing in this draft, especially because each time I work on it, I find myself getting more and more excited to work on it, which is a good sign and something I haven’t experienced in any other iteration of this project thus far. I also have a better, more detailed outline to work from now, which will help tremendously, as I am building a speculative world that has a lot of moving pieces and timelines to keep track of.

What did I risk?

I not only risked starting over again, but I also risked taking a new narrative approach to how I am going to tell this story. I will now be including dual timeline narratives that will follow multiple characters, when before there was only going to be one narrative following two characters. This was an adjustment I knew I had to make, but it wasn’t an easy one to make, as telling the story this way requires more behind-the-scenes work. I hope the reason for this change becomes more apparent in future posts about my WIP, as well as the WIP itself.

What did I create?

I created the last collection of notes and documents I needed to understand the world I’m building for this WIP better. It includes a more comprehensive plot outline, more elaborate character sketches, mind maps, image and mood boards for the world I’m building (like the one I included above), and everything from the tech specs for some of the devices and systems characters will be using in their everyday lives to the laws governing a faction’s tribunals and meritocracy, which is run by its AI. Creating these documents was not only fun, but more necessary to working on this WIP than I had originally thought they would be. I hope to share some of the details from this collection soon… and maybe add a playlist to it too?

Reflection on Creative Courage and My WIP

Overall, exploring creative courage this month inspired me to keep going with my WIP despite setbacks and uncertainties. It allowed me to trust my creative intuition a lot better and lean into the risks I know I need to take to write the work that I am meant to write. And it motivated me to go a little easier on myself, as it allowed me to understand that while my process can seem incredibly slow at times, it’s often incredibly thorough and inventive too, at least when I give it a little room to breathe and take the shape it needs to take.

I can’t wait to see what August has in store for my WIP, when we explore The Creative Life.

My goal as of today is to reach 12,000-13,000 words in this next draft by the end of next month. I also hope to have some excerpts of prose to share with you, along with a character sketch or two.

An Invitation to Reflect and Discuss: Creative Courage

I invite you to take a moment to look back at what you worked on in July, then leave a comment or join this week’s Dialoguers chat so we can discuss it. Tell us what you’re working on, where creative courage arose in your writing this month, or a challenge you faced along the way.

Whether you share excerpts from your latest work, ask more thought-provoking questions about creative courage, or join to connect with other writers and support their work, we look forward to your contributions!

Join the Dialoguers Chat

Leave a comment

Share

Continue Exploring July’s Creative Courage Theme

This Week: Sharing the Work

Writing Prompts That Encourage You to Share Your Work

The mostly true hidden story…

ICYM Week 2: Taking Creative Risks

Taking Creative Risks: Writing Prompts to Build Creative Courage

Beneath the Armor

Should writers prioritize creative risks or readers’ expectations?

20 Books That Prove Creative Risks Are Worth Taking

A Poetic Risk

Balancing Artistic Vision and Creative Risks with Readers’ Expectations

Stories I’ve Read Recently That Made Me See Something Differently

Popular Posts from Week 1: Beginning Before You Feel Ready

Beginning Before You Feel Ready: Writing Prompts

Why Beginning Feels So Difficult, But Doesn’t Have to Be

Books That Made Me Want to Write and Take Creative Risks

Subscribe now

Buy me a coffee to say thanks

Consider going more in depth with this month’s theme with July’s Creative Courage Writing Collection.

The writing collection is designed to help you explore creative courage from different angles: discovering your voice, strengthening your craft, experimenting with new approaches, and reflecting on the writer you are becoming.

The free Drafts and Dialogues posts that will be published this month will explore the outward side of creative courage—beginning, risking, and sharing— and should complement this collection quite well, which invites you to go much deeper into the internal work of creativity with 30 guided writing prompts and craft exercises, reflections, as well as three options for guided monthly writing challenges for those who want to go even further than that.

Note: Paid subscribers have access to the full archive, including previous writing prompts, discussions, and reading lists, as well as full access to the community chat and Daily Drafters Exclusives writing collections.

Get 30-Day Free Trial

Share Daily Drafts & Dialogues

© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 3: Sharing the Work

What I wrote below is based on the following creative writing prompt included in Saturday’s Writing Prompts That Encourage You to Share Your Work post.

Prompt: The Hidden Manuscript

Write a story about someone discovering another person’s secret writing.

Why did I choose it?

I lost my mother at a young age, which left me with many unanswered questions about who she was and wanted to be, especially because her death was sudden and unexpected. So, I suppose a lot of my writing is influenced by that, and that a part of me chose this prompt to see if it would allow me to explore that experience in some minor way, even if only on a surface level. My mother wasn’t a writer and never kept journals, that I know of anyway. But what if she was, and what if she had? What would I have uncovered, and what would it have told me about her?

Another part of me likely chose this prompt because I find the concept of discovering secret writing compelling, as it prompts readers to ask themselves who they can trust and why alongside the main character. It also invites both parties to investigate written documents and their authenticity, meaning, and genesis, which I find fascinating. And it opens the door for a variety of different plots to enter, depending on what type of writing is discovered, where, and by whom. A secret letter will likely lead readers in a different direction than a secret manifesto. An unsent letter can lead places a secret book manuscript could not. And so on.

What follows is where my creativity led me this week when answering this prompt. Yet who knows what my response to this same prompt would be a few weeks or months from now? I might just hang on to it to find out. But for now, this is where I landed…

My Response: The mostly true hidden story…

dropped off boxes from moms office closet hayley said u want the journals

Of course she did. Of course, my new sweet-yet-naive-and-completely-clueless sister-in-law had said I wanted the musty old boxes full of composition notebooks currently taking up the only navigable space at the edge of my living room. Because, for some inexplicable reason, ever since my mother had died, she has been hell bent on reallocating practically everything my mother had so much as breathed on to me, and my teeny tiny studio apartment.

And oh, how I wish I could have ignored their obtuse dimensions and moldy stench, for at least one more day. I had to be at work in less than an hour and was supposed to meet Kaia at the taco cart on the way to hear about the ‘trauma-dumping’ date she had last night. And I, well… needed to keep myself as busy as possible and do anything and everything that prevented me from thinking about or excavating my mom’s old words.

But the harder I tried to ignore them, like the lack of punctuation in my brother’s texts, the more space they seemed to occupy in my mind. I just couldn’t resist their magnetic pull.

Mid glam up routine, I couldn’t take it anymore. I put down my concealer tube and blush brush and charged back into the living room intent on ripping open the first box I saw. Which I did. Though it ended up being much easier than I had anticipated because its moist top edges folded against my hands as I pulled them back, tearing them off completely.

And there it was, my mother’s handwriting, scrawled inside the boxes on the journal covers staring up at me, marking time. Though based on its neater and more precise curves and points, I could also tell it was her handwriting from before she had me and probably ran out of time for pretty penmanship, or writing in journals for that matter. From a time when she was younger than I am now.

The one on my left read: Summer 2000. The one on the right: Winter 2000.

I was born in the spring of 2001, so I grabbed the latter. A surreal feeling washed over me when I picked it up and held it in my hands, realizing she had held it before too, but without knowing when the last time she did was. Based on the condition of the box it was in, it could have been years.

My finger was on the top corner of its cover, ready to pull it back when my phone buzzed on the glass top of the side table, making me jump and drop the journal.

When I bent to pick it up, I saw my mother’s face illuminating on my phone in my periphery and sucked in a shallow breath.

With shaky hands, I picked up the phone, wondering whether to accept or reject the call.

My voice cracked when I answered on the fourth or fifth ring.

“H-hel-lo?”

“Hey honey. Just wanted to see if we’re still on for dinner tomorrow?”

A small wave of relief washed over me.

“Dad?”

“Who else would it be?” He chuckled, but when I didn’t respond right away he followed up with, “You okay peanut?”

I drew a long breath.

“Yeah, I guess. It’s just mom’s picture came up when—”

“Oh, dang it. I did it again. So sorry honey. I left her phone out, meaning to take it to the phone place to return it or recycle it or whatever your brother keeps telling me to do with it and keep mistaking it for mine instead. We have all the same contacts and they look the exact same, I swear.”

I let out a small laugh, now fully relieved my mother wasn’t calling me from beyond the grave the second I decided to go snooping through her old journals.

“So, we still on for tomorrow?”

“Yeah. But you should come to my place before so we can look at these journals Hayley had Finn drop off this morning while I was at yoga.”

“What journals?”

“The ones from mom’s office closet. I think they’re from when she was younger, but I don’t know for sure what’s in them.”

There was an awkward pause then, “I didn’t know your mother kept journals.”

“Well, apparently she did. I have three boxes full of them here in the pathway to my living room to prove it.”

I nudged one with my foot, as if he could see me making my case.

“Hmmm. Okay, well sure, we’ll look at them tomorrow then. I’ll be by at six-thirty.”

“Sounds good.”

I was about to say goodbye and hang up when he said, “Hey Peanut, do me a favor.”

“Yeah dad?”

“Wait until I get there tomorrow to open them, okay?”

“Sure, no problem. I’m headed to work in a few anyway.”

But as I bent my head to hang up the phone, I caught a glimpse of the first page of the journal that had fallen, which was now splayed open.

In bold capital letters, it read: MY SECRET LIFE AS AN ASSASSIN: A DOCUDRAMA

And underneath those bold letters: The mostly true story behind how I survived and playacted my way through hostages and hits to be home in time for dinner.

My Reflection

Working on this prompt was fun and more thought-provoking than I thought it would be when I first started writing, as I seriously couldn’t get the phrase “mostly true story” out of my head and how I would feel if I came across it in a loved one’s written material after they passed. Which also allowed me to appreciate the adverb ‘mostly’ more, and how adverbs might be used effectively in fiction when we’re constantly told to avoid them like the plague. But that is a topic to get into some other time.

I also like the cliffhanger of this piece, as it offers a great place to start later, which made me remember that most beginnings to stories come at the end of other stories. So writing this piece uncovered a hidden trick for me: If I’m struggling to find a story’s beginning, perhaps I should find where the story that came before it ended first.

And, of course, I liked the uncertainty the piece’s cliffhanger brings, as it provides an open-ended question that I, the writer, may or may not be able to answer in full when I carry on writing the story, which would make writing the remainder of this piece fun and engaging. And that reminds me of something Robert Frost wrote once: “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”

Ultimately, I didn’t uncover anything too personal about my mother’s passing or how I feel about it, but writing this piece was still cathartic and enjoyable in other ways, as it helped me rediscover some hidden truths behind the nature of storytelling and language itself and the myriad of reasons behind why someone may or may not choose to share their writing. And that made writing this worth it.

How about you? What did this prompt or flash fiction piece surface for you?

Leave a comment or join this week’s Drafters Workshop chat so we can discuss it or your own writing related to Saturday’s Writing Prompts That Encourage You to Share Your Work.

Whether you join the chat to share your responses to this week’s prompts, ask questions, workshop an excerpt of something else you’ve written, or simply want to encourage others, we’d love to see you there as we explore what it means to share our creative work with others this week.

Join the Drafters Workshop Chat

Leave a comment

Share

Continue Exploring July’s Creative Courage Theme

This Week: Sharing the Work

Writing Prompts That Encourage You to Share Your Work

ICYM Week 2: Taking Creative Risks

Taking Creative Risks: Writing Prompts to Build Creative Courage

Beneath the Armor

Should writers prioritize creative risks or readers’ expectations?

20 Books That Prove Creative Risks Are Worth Taking

A Poetic Risk

Balancing Artistic Vision and Creative Risks with Readers’ Expectations

Stories I’ve Read Recently That Made Me See Something Differently

Popular Posts from Week 1: Beginning Before You Feel Ready

Beginning Before You Feel Ready: Writing Prompts

Why Beginning Feels So Difficult, But Doesn’t Have to Be

Books That Made Me Want to Write and Take Creative Risks

Subscribe now

Buy me a coffee to say thanks

Consider going more in depth with this month’s theme with July’s Creative Courage Writing Collection.

The writing collection is designed to help you explore creative courage from different angles: discovering your voice, strengthening your craft, experimenting with new approaches, and reflecting on the writer you are becoming.

The free Drafts writing prompts posts that will be published every Saturday this month will explore the outward side of creative courage—beginning, risking, and sharing— and should complement this collection quite well, which invites you to go much deeper into the internal work of creativity with 30 guided writing prompts and craft exercises, reflections, as well as three options for guided monthly writing challenges for those who want to go even further than that.

Note: Paid subscribers have access to the full archive, including previous writing prompts, discussions, and reading lists, as well as full access to the community chat and Daily Drafters Exclusives writing collections.

Get 30-Day Free Trial

Share Daily Drafts & Dialogues

© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC. The above work is a piece of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 3: Sharing the Work

Sharing the Work

Welcome to the final week of July’s Creative Courage series, where we’ve been exploring one guiding question over the past couple of weeks: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

We began by asking what it means to begin before you feel ready, recognizing that waiting for confidence often keeps us from ever starting. The following week, we explored taking creative risks, learning that growth often begins just outside our comfort zones.

This week, we’re taking one of the most important and difficult steps in this creative journey by delving into why and how we should share the work we create.

Creating something is deeply personal, and sharing what we create can sometimes feel like we’re sharing a private piece of ourselves with others because in a way we are. And that takes courage. But it doesn’t have to feel overwhelming or intimidating… or even lackluster.

Essentially, whether you’re showing someone a first draft, publishing a poem, telling a story aloud, or allowing another person to witness your creativity in some other way, sharing what you create requires courage, as well as a bit of self-awareness coupled with set intentions.

So, this week’s prompts explore this final step in our creative courage journey, encouraging us to discover what it means to share what we create and why we should share what we create. And it’s not because we’re searching for perfection or approval, but because we seek sincere opportunities for connection, honesty, and growth.

You’ll see my response to one of the creative prompts below in tomorrow’s post, and my response to one of the reflective prompts on Wednesday.

I hope to see what you come up with for one of these prompts in the Drafters Workshop chat soon too, so we can support one another as we demonstrate creative courage by sharing our work.

General Tips for Every Prompt

Sharing your creative work can feel exciting, intimidating, and deeply personal all at once. As you work through these prompts, remember that your creativity grows and evolves not only through making things for others to enjoy, but also through connecting with others due to those things you make and share with them to enjoy, and vice versa.

• Write honestly before trying to edit or improve what you write. Authenticity will resonate far more than perfection.

• Allow yourself to be vulnerable. The stories that feel the most personal to you will often become the ones others connect with most.

• Remember that sharing is an act of courage, not a measure of success. Your worth as a creator isn’t determined by someone else’s reaction.

• View feedback as information, not judgment. Every well-intended and constructive response offers an opportunity to learn more about your work and yourself.

• Consider your audience, but don’t write to please everyone. Focus on telling the story you feel called to tell.

• Celebrate the act of sharing. Whether you read your work aloud, send it to one trusted person, or publish it on a public platform, each act of sharing is worth recognizing.

• Reflect after each prompt you work on. Ask yourself: What felt vulnerable? What surprised me? What am I learning about sharing my creative work?

This week’s invitation: Take one brave step beyond the page by sharing something you’ve created.

Quick Note: While I will always encourage writers to write to the extent of their heart’s content, I would suggest starting with one prompt from each section first. Select the creative prompt and reflective prompt that seem to really speak to you first, then see where those writing experiences lead you before attempting to complete the rest of the prompts. If you end up completing all or most of the prompts after that, that’s amazing! But if you don’t, that’s perfectly fine too. You won’t run out of opportunities to see prompts like this because there will be another post of prompts available next Saturday when this one is auto-archived.

Creative Writing Prompts About Sharing Creative Work

1. The Hidden Manuscript

Write a story about someone discovering another person’s secret writing.

Focus On:

• The reasons someone might keep their writing hidden (fear, protection, shame, hope, unfinished/unrealized dreams, etc.)

• How discovering another person’s words changes the reader’s understanding of them.

• The emotional weight of private thoughts becoming visible.

• The ethical questions surrounding reading something never meant to be found.

Skills to Practice:

• Building mystery by revealing information gradually, space and time permitting.

• Developing complex character motivations through actions and written words.

• Creating emotional depth without relying too heavily on exposition.

• Using setting and atmosphere to reinforce the story’s sense of secrecy.

Tip: Think about why the writing was hidden. The reason behind the secret can become the heart of the story.

2. The First Reader

Write about the first person to read a character’s work.

Focus On:

• The vulnerability that comes with sharing creative work for the first time.

• The relationship between the writer and their first reader.

• The expectations, fears, and hopes each person brings to the moment.

• How one response can influence a creator’s confidence or future.

Skills to Practice:

• Writing believable dialogue that reveals emotion.

• Balancing internal thoughts with external action.

• Building tension through anticipation rather than explicit conflict alone.

• Showing emotional shifts through subtle reactions and body language.

Tip: The reader’s response doesn’t have to be positive or negative or dramatic, it just needs to feel honest.

3. The Public Moment

Write a scene where someone shares something vulnerable.

Focus On:

• The emotional experience of choosing openness over self-protection.

• What makes a public moment feel risky or transformative.

• The different ways people respond to vulnerability.

• The contrast between how a character imagines the moment and how it actually unfolds.

Skills to Practice:

• Crafting immersive, scene-based storytelling.

• Using pacing to build emotional suspense.

• Incorporating sensory details that heighten the atmosphere.

• Conveying emotion through physical actions rather than explanation.

Tip: Notice small physical details like eye contact, trembling hands, or the rhythm of a character’s breath to make the moment they’re experiencing feel real.

4. The Critique

Write a story about receiving unexpected feedback.

Focus On:

• The difference between hearing/seeing feedback and truly receiving/understanding it.

• The emotions that surface when expectations and reality don’t align.

• How constructive criticism, praise, or misunderstanding can shape a creator’s journey.

• The role humility, resilience, and perspective play in creative growth.

Skills to Practice:

• Writing realistic interpersonal conflict.

• Developing character growth through reflection and change.

• Exploring multiple perspectives within the same interaction.

• Using dialogue to reveal subtext and emotional complexity.

Tip: Unexpected feedback isn’t always criticism. Sometimes encouragement can be just as surprising.

5. The Story That Needed to Be Told

Write about someone sharing a story despite their fears.

Focus On:

• A deeper purpose that outweighs the fear of being vulnerable.

• The impact stories can have on individuals or communities.

• The emotional cost (and reward) of speaking up.

• The idea that telling one story can change both the storyteller and their listener.

Skills to Practice:

• Writing with a clear central theme.

• Creating emotionally satisfying endings.

• Building a character’s courage through believable choices.

• Weaving personal stakes with broader meaning.

Tip: Ask yourself what is stronger than the character’s fear. That answer will guide the story.

Join the Drafters Workshop

Subscribe now

Reflective Journaling Prompts About Sharing Your Work

6. What makes sharing creative work difficult?

Focus On:

• The fears, beliefs, or experiences that influence your willingness to share.

• The difference between external criticism and internal self-judgment.

• How perfectionism or harsh self-judgment affects your creative process.

• What vulnerability means to you as a creator.

Skills to Practice:

• Honest self-reflection without harsh self-criticism.

• Identifying recurring creative patterns and beliefs.

• Naming emotions with specificity.

• Exploring root causes instead of surface-level answers.

Tip: Instead of judging your fears, become curious about where they came from.

7. Who do you trust with your writing?

Focus On:

• The qualities that make someone a supportive reader.

• How trust influences your willingness to share unfinished work.

• The role of encouragement and honest feedback in your growth.

• The people who have shaped your creative journey.

Skills to Practice:

• Reflective storytelling.

• Expressing gratitude through writing.

• Examining relationships with nuance.

• Connecting personal experiences to creative development.

Tip: Consider not only who supports your creativity but why you trust them.

8. What does feedback mean to you?

Focus On:

• How your past experiences influence the way you receive feedback today.

• The difference between critique, encouragement, and validation.

• What kind of feedback helps you grow most.

• How feedback has shaped your confidence and creative identity.

Skills to Practice:

• Critical self-reflection.

• Reframing difficult experiences with perspective.

• Identifying lessons learned over time.

• Exploring personal mindset and growth.

Tip: Think about one piece of feedback that changed your writing or your confidence.

9. What would you create if you knew someone needed your story?

Focus On:

• The people or experiences that inspire your creativity.

• How writing can offer comfort, hope, understanding, or connection.

• The messages you most want others to hear.

• Creating with purpose rather than approval.

Skills to Practice:

• Clarifying your creative purpose.

• Writing with empathy and compassion.

• Connecting personal experience to universal themes.

• Exploring motivation and intention.

Tip: Imagine writing for one specific person instead of an audience.

10. How has sharing changed your relationship with creativity?

Focus On:

• Moments when sharing transformed your confidence or perspective.

• How your relationship with creativity has evolved over time.

• The lessons you’ve learned through both positive and difficult experiences.

• What sharing has taught you about yourself as a creator.

Skills to Practice:

• Reflective narrative writing.

• Recognizing patterns of growth.

• Synthesizing experiences into meaningful insights.

• Celebrating progress while acknowledging ongoing challenges.

Tip: Compare how you felt the first time you shared your work with how you feel today.

Join the Conversation

Every creative journey includes moments of uncertainty, courage, and connection. Thank you for spending part of yours here this week!

Whether you keep your words tucked away safely in a notebook for the time being or choose to share them with the world today, remember that every story written is an act of courage, and that every story shared has the potential to reach someone who needs it.

I hope the remainder of this series continues to inspire you to keep writing and keep showing up for your own creativity, in both surprising and expected ways, one page, one draft, and one dialogue at a time.

Please consider sharing one of your responses in the comments or join our community chat to discuss this week’s prompts, encourage fellow writers, exchange ideas, and celebrate the creative work you’re doing.

You never know whose courage might begin with reading your comment or story next, and vice versa!

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: What’s one thing you could share today that might help you connect with someone else? Share your response in the comments or chat and encourage another writer along the way.

I’m so glad you’re here and look forward to engaging with you this week about what it means to share our work with others and why doing so is fundamental to building creative courage.

Please don’t forget to like and share this post if you enjoyed it so others can enjoy it too. Thank you!

Join the Drafters Workshop Chat

Leave a comment

Share

Continue Exploring July’s Creative Courage Theme

ICYM Week 2: Taking Creative Risks

Taking Creative Risks: Writing Prompts to Build Creative Courage

Beneath the Armor

Should writers prioritize creative risks or readers’ expectations?

20 Books That Prove Creative Risks Are Worth Taking

A Poetic Risk

Balancing Artistic Vision and Creative Risks with Readers’ Expectations

Stories I’ve Read Recently That Made Me See Something Differently

Popular Posts from Week 1: Beginning Before You Feel Ready

Beginning Before You Feel Ready: Writing Prompts

Why Beginning Feels So Difficult, But Doesn’t Have to Be

Books That Made Me Want to Write and Take Creative Risks

Subscribe now

Buy me a coffee to say thanks

Consider going more in depth with this month’s theme with July’s Creative Courage Writing Collection.

The writing collection is designed to help you explore creative courage from different angles: discovering your voice, strengthening your craft, experimenting with new approaches, and reflecting on the writer you are becoming.

The free Drafts writing prompts posts that will be published every Saturday this month (like this one) will explore the outward side of creative courage—beginning, risking, and sharing— and should complement this collection quite well, which invites you to go much deeper into the internal work of creativity with 30 guided writing prompts and craft exercises, reflections, as well as three options for guided monthly writing challenges for those who want to go even further than that.

Note: Paid subscribers have access to the full archive, including previous writing prompts, discussions, and reading lists, as well as full access to the community chat and Daily Drafters Exclusives writing collections.

Get 30-Day Free Trial

Share Daily Drafts & Dialogues

© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 2: Taking Creative Risks

Some stories entertain us while others teach us something new.

And then there are the rare books that substantially rearrange and influence how our minds and creative lives operate. They challenge our assumptions, deepen our empathy, and or help us understand experiences we’ve never lived ourselves, as well as those we want to live next.

Sometimes those rare and influential stories change how we see history. Sometimes they change how we see other people and places. And occasionally, they even change how we see ourselves.

One of my favorite questions isn’t “What’s the best book you’ve ever read?” it’s “What book changed the way you see the world?”

And for me, the answer to that question is constantly being updated with every book I read. So, I make it a point to reflect more deeply on what books have evolved my perspective and creative practice (often without my realizing it) every few years or so.

The books mentioned in today’s post aren’t simply a list of my recent favorite reads, they’re stories I’ve read recently (within the past few years) that have left me with a new perspective. These are books that have recently expanded my understanding of humanity, grief, love, identity, courage, language and communication, and what it means to live a creative life to its fullest, even if only by an inch.

If you’ve ever finished a book and felt like the world was beginning to look just a little different from before you opened it, you know exactly what I mean. Perhaps one of the following works did that for you too? Keep reading, then let me know what’s on your list of significant recent reads in the comments.

The Weight of History

History is often taught as a collection of dates, movements, and major events. But the stories that tend to stay with me are the ones that remind me that history is also personal— that it lives in families, in forgotten voices, in the places people call home, and in the consequences that continue long after a notable event has ended.

The next few books mentioned changed the way I think about history because they moved beyond what happened and asked a deeper question: Who gets remembered, and whose experiences have been left out?

America, América: A New History of the New World by Greg Grandin

Greg Grandin’s sweeping exploration of the Americas challenged me to reconsider how I understand the history of the Western Hemisphere, and the entire world. Rather than treating nations and borders as static, fixed realities, the book reveals how deeply connected the Americas have always been through migration, colonialism, conflict, economics, and cultural exchanges throughout their intertwined histories. And that the history of one of the Americas cannot be truly comprehensive without the history of the other.

What stayed with me was the realization that history is rarely a simple progression of events. Instead, it is a series of interconnected choices made by people whose lives continue to shape the present.

Grandin’s work also changed the way I think about places throughout history and how the present can affect that. Countries are not just geographic locations, they are living stories built from competing and intertwined memories, struggles, and visions of the future.

Also Read:

• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
  A fascinating reconsideration of Indigenous civilizations before European contact.

• The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
  A deeply human account of the Great Migration and the lives shaped by it.

• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
  A powerful reframing of American history through Indigenous perspectives.

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

The Personal Librarian reminded me that while history is often preserved through institutions, it is experienced through individuals.

The novel brings to light the remarkable story of Belle da Costa Greene, the woman who built one of the greatest rare book collections in the world while hiding a significant part of her identity. Her work shaped literary and cultural history, yet her personal story remained largely unknown.

What moved me most was the tension between her achievements and invisibility. Greene’s life raises questions about what people sacrifice to create opportunities, protect themselves, and move through a world that does not always allow them to be fully seen, even when they do a lot of work to preserve its knowledge and culture.

The book reminded me that there are human stories behind every famous collection, institution, or achievement that deserve attention too.

Also Read:

• The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles
  A story about books, courage, and resistance during World War II.

• The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis
  A historical mystery centered around the New York Public Library and the people who protect its treasures.

• The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
  A portrait of resilience, literacy, and the power of books in isolated communities.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

Ariel Lawhon’s historical fiction reminded me that history is often preserved through the people who take the time to observe, document, and question what others overlook. And how often women’s contributions have been written out of history altogether.

Inspired by the life of Martha Ballard, an eighteenth-century midwife and diarist, the novel reveals how an ordinary woman could become an extraordinary witness and changemaker in her time. Her records provide a rare perspective on women’s lives, medical practices, justice, and community in early America.

Reading this novel allowed me to reflect on whose voices survive. History often centers powerful figures, but sometimes the most valuable records come from people who were simply paying attention and caring about their communities.

The novel reminded me that bearing witness and caring for others can be their own form of courage.

Also Read:

• Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
  A deeply imagined portrait of Shakespeare’s family and the private grief behind public history.

• Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

  Like Hamnet and The Frozen River, this novel follows an ordinary young housemaid turned healer who must survive catastrophic disease and social collapse.

• The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
  A reimagining of an overlooked female voice within a familiar historical world.

Reflection: History Is Made of Human Stories

The books mentioned above changed the way I consider and approach history because they reminded me that the past is not distant, and that it is carried forward through families, institutions, landscapes, and memories.

The most meaningful historical stories do not simply tell us what happened, they help us understand how people experienced various historical events on a personal level, and how those experiences continue to shape the world we live in today. They remind us that history is not only about remembering the most famous, loudest, and most popular voices, but also about finding and listening to the voices that were almost lost or buried.

What It Means to Be Seen

One of the most powerful things a story can do is allow us to recognize a life experience we may never have encountered before.

The books in the following section changed the way I think about visibility—who is seen, who is misunderstood, who is believed, and who has had to fight to have their experiences recognized.

They reminded me that being seen is not simply about being noticed, it is about being understood with a level of nuance and dignity.

A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind by Harriet A. Washington

Washington’s work changed the way I think about the relationship between environment, health, and opportunity. Before reading it, it was easy to think of environmental issues as primarily about conservation or pollution or climate change. But Washington reveals a much more complicated reality about how where people live, work, and grow up can profoundly shape their physical and mental well-being.

The book examines how environmental hazards disproportionately affect marginalized communities and how these conditions are not accidental but often connected to historical patterns of inequality, policy decisions, and social neglect.

What stayed with me was the understanding that a person’s surroundings are never determined by mere happenstance, and that one’s environment can influence everything, from how long they live to how they’re able to live day-to-day. That the places people inhabit can affect their health, education, opportunities, and futures.

Also Read:

• The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee
  An exploration of how inequality affects entire communities and why shared prosperity depends on addressing systemic barriers.

• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
  A beautiful reflection on ecology, Indigenous wisdom, and humanity’s relationship with the natural world.

• Evicted by Matthew Desmond
  A powerful look at housing instability and the forces that shape economic inequality.

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

Ring Shout changed the way I think about the role of fantasy fiction. I have always understood fantasy as a way to imagine different worlds, but Clark demonstrates how fantasy can also reveal truths about the world we already inhabit.

Set against the backdrop of 1920s Georgia, the novella transforms historical racism into a supernatural battle, using monsters as a representation of the hatred and violence embedded in society. And it is so visceral that you can actually feel it in your body.

What makes the story so powerful is that its fantastical elements do not distance readers from the historical truths the novel reveals but brings its emotional reality into sharper focus. The supernatural becomes a way to examine the very real forces that communities have had to confront, in a way that is powerful and long-lasting.

The book reminded me that sometimes the best way to understand reality is through the darkest fantasies of one’s imagination.

Also Read:

• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
  A groundbreaking novel that uses time travel to explore slavery, memory, and inherited trauma.

• The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
  A reimagining of Lovecraftian horror that examines racism, fear, and power.

• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
  A horror novel exploring identity, history, and cultural memory.

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

The Satanic Verses changed the way I think about the power and responsibility of storytelling. Rushdie’s novel demonstrates that literature does not exist in isolation, but enters broader conversations about identity, religion, migration, politics, and belonging that span centuries.

The controversy surrounding the book has often overshadowed discussions of its literary ambition, but what stayed with me was Rushdie’s willingness to explore uncertainty and complexity and have a little fun while doing it. The novel refuses simple categories, instead examining what happens when people move between cultures and struggle with questions of transformation and identity.

The book reminded me that stories can challenge assumptions precisely because they refuse to remain comfortable. And I would also encourage readers to check out his recent(ish) memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.

Also Read:

• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

  A classic satirical novel where the Devil visits 1930s Moscow alongside a talking cat, interweaving the absurdities of an atheistic regime with the story of Pontius Pilate.

• Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
  A lyrical examination of migration, love, and displacement.

• The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
  A deeply moving exploration of family, cultural identity, and belonging.

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

Infinite Country changed the way I think about immigration stories. Too often, conversations about migration focus on borders, policies, or statistics, but Engel brings the focus back to the human experience, where families are separated by circumstance, children navigate multiple identities, and people try to create a sense of home in unfamiliar places.

The novel reminded me that immigration is not a single event, but an ongoing emotional experience shaped by memory, sacrifice, hope, and belonging.

What stayed with me was the idea that home is not always a place we return to. Sometimes home becomes the collection of people, languages, memories, and traditions we carry with us.

Also Read:

• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  A nuanced exploration of immigration, race, love, and identity.

• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
  A multigenerational story about displacement, family, and belonging.

• The Leavers by Lisa Ko
  A story about an undocumented immigrant mother who vanishes, leaving her young son to be adopted by a new family that investigates parental sacrifice, deportation fallout, and a child’s long journey to understand identity and belonging.

Reflection: Visibility Changes Understanding

The books just mentioned reminded me that many of the world’s most important stories are not about discovering something entirely new, but about seeing something that has always been there yet not regularly acknowledged.

A powerful story can expand our understanding of another person’s reality. It can challenge the assumptions we carry, reveal the consequences of decisions we rarely examine, and make experiences that once felt distant become deeply human.

To be seen is to be recognized in full, not as a stereotype, a statistic, or a symbol, but as a person with complexity, history, and agency. And literature offers the best way to help us recognize each other more fully.

Memory, Place, and Belonging

Some stories stay with us because they change the way we think about the past, while others stay with us because they change the way we think about home and the present.

The books in the following section explore the invisible threads that connect memory, identity, place, and belonging. They ask questions that are both deeply personal and universally human:

• What makes a place feel like home?

• How much of ourselves is shaped by what we remember?

• Can we ever fully understand another person’s reality?

These stories reminded me that belonging is not always about where we are from. Sometimes it is about what we carry with us.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara and the Sun changed the way I think about artificial intelligence. Rather than focusing primarily on technology, Ishiguro uses the perspective of an artificial friend to explore much deeper questions about love, consciousness, loyalty, and what it means to be human. And it was so emotionally surprising.

Klara’s (the artificial friend’s) observations are simple and sincere, yet they reveal the complexity of human emotion. Through her eyes, readers are invited to reconsider whether empathy, devotion, and love require human origins, or whether they are qualities we recognize wherever we seek them.

What stayed with me was the idea that humanity is not defined only by what we create and consume, but by the relationships we form and the ways we care for one another, and how all that transpired from a technically non-human perspective.

Also Read:

• The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
  A charming yet profoundly moving novel following Roz, a robot who must learn to adapt to a harsh wilderness, understand emotions, connection, and what it means to care for others.

• Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan
  A thoughtful examination of artificial intelligence, ethics, and human imperfection.

• The Measure by Nikki Erlick
  A speculative story about choice, identity, and how people respond when confronted with uncertainty.

Delirium by Laura Restrepo

Delirium changed the way I think about truth and perspective. Restrepo creates a story where reality is constantly shifting depending on who is telling it, revealing how memory, trauma, family history, and social circumstances influence what we believe.

The novel moves through different voices and timelines, creating a portrait of a family and a country affected by violence and instability. What fascinated me was how the fragmented structure mirrors the fractured nature of human consciousness and understanding.

The book reminded me that truth is not always a single, complete version of events. Sometimes understanding comes from listening to multiple perspectives and recognizing the pieces that each person carries.

Also Read:

• Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo
  A haunting exploration of memory, identity, and the boundaries between life and death.

• The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
  A multigenerational story blending history, politics, memory, and magical realism.

• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
  A beautifully structured novel about family, memory, and the lasting impact of childhood.

Parasol Against the Axe by Helen Oyeyemi

Parasol Against the Axe changed the way I think about a fictional setting and what it could do. Often, we think of a setting in a novel as a backdrop to its story and characters, but Oyeyemi treats the city setting in this novel as something that is alive, something with its own contradictions, histories, and mysteries.

The novel explores Prague not as a simple location but as a collection of memories, myths, stories, and interpretations. It reminded me that places are shaped by the people who inhabit them, and that people are also shaped by the places they move through.

What stayed with me was the idea that every city contains countless versions of itself depending on who is experiencing and moving through it.

Also Read:

• Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
  A poetic exploration of imagined cities and the relationship between place and perception.

• Open City by Teju Cole
  A reflective journey through a city, memory, migration, and identity.

• The City & the City by China Miéville
  A genre-bending exploration of how perception shapes the worlds we inhabit.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

The Correspondent changed the way I think about letters as a form of storytelling. In an era of immediate communication, letters preserve something increasingly rare: patience, reflection, and the willingness to sit with complicated thoughts before sharing them.

Through correspondence we are able to see not only what characters experience but also what they choose to reveal, what they hold back, and how their relationships evolve through words written across time and distance.

The novel reminded me that writing is an act of connection. A letter is not simply a static piece of mail, it is an offering, and even an invitation in a lot of ways. It asks another person to pause, listen, and enter a moment of shared understanding.

What stayed with me was the power of written communication to capture the parts of us that are sometimes easier to express on the page than verbally.

Also Read:

• 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
  A charming collection of letters that celebrates friendship, books, and the unexpected connections that form through writing.

• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
  A story of resilience, community, and relationships built through correspondence.

• Possession by A.S. Byatt
  A literary mystery that uses letters, journals, and historical documents to explore love, scholarship, and discovery.

Reflection: We Carry Our Stories with Us

These books reminded me that belonging is not simply about geography. It is about memory, relationships, language, and the experiences that shape how we understand ourselves and one another.

We carry places with us long after we leave them. We carry people with us long after they are gone. And we carry versions of ourselves that existed in different seasons of our lives.

Perhaps that is why stories about memory and belonging resonate so deeply. They remind us that identity, and how we understand our place in the world, is not fixed. We are constantly being shaped by what we experience, what we remember, and what (and who) we choose to hold onto.

The stories that move us most often reveal something we already knew but had not yet found the words to express.

Creative Courage

Some of the most memorable stories are memorable because they take a risk. They risk a new structure, a new voice, a new perspective, and sometimes even risk disappointing readers who loved what came before and expect something similar.

Creative courage does not always mean creating something completely unfamiliar. Sometimes it means taking something familiar and looking at it from a different angle. It means trusting curiosity over certainty and allowing a story to become what it needs to become.

The following books changed the way I think about creativity because they reminded me that growth requires a willingness to step beyond what is comfortable.

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life made me think differently about what happens when an author steps outside the expectations that come with their success, as she pushed the limits of what she typically includes in her romance novels with this work.

When readers love a writer’s work, they naturally develop expectations. They return for certain rhythms, themes, characters, and emotional experiences. But creative growth often requires a writer to resist the temptation to simply recreate what already worked.

What impressed me about this book was how it navigated new genre territories and involved new levels of risk for Henry. The book differs structurally from her previous works by shifting focus toward women’s fiction, family history, and an old Hollywood dual-timeline mystery rather than centering entirely on the main couple’s romance.

The book reminded me that artistic courage is not only required when beginning but also at every stage of a creative’s life.

Also Read:

• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
  A story about friendship, creativity, ambition, and the risks involved in making something meaningful.

• The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
  A novel that balances historical tragedy with deeply human storytelling.

• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
  A thoughtful exploration of memory, family, and an author continuing to evolve.

The Favorites by Layne Fargo

The Favorites changed the way I think about stories built around competition, ambition, and performance. At first glance, a high-stakes world can seem like it is primarily about winning, achievement, or public recognition. Fargo reveals something more complicated instead— that beneath every performance is a person navigating desire, pressure, vulnerability, and the need or yearning to be understood.

What stayed with me was the way it revealed how emotional depth does not have to be sacrificed for a story’s momentum. A story can be propulsive while still exploring the more profound questions underneath it like: Who are we when we are being watched? How much of ourselves do we give away in pursuit of excellence? And what happens when the version of ourselves we perform becomes difficult to separate from who we truly are or want to be, or who we love?

The novel reminded me that the most compelling stories often exist in the space between the public self and the private one, and that they must be as engaging as they are insightful.

Also Read:

• The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes by Elissa R. Sloan
  An intense behind-the-scenes look at the bonds and dramatic breakup of an infamous early-2000s girl group.

• Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  A story about excellence, reputation, competition, and the cost of being exceptional.

• The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
  A layered exploration of memory, choices, and the hidden lives people carry.

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Although Daisy Jones & The Six is also a story about strong characters and voices (literally), it belongs here because of the creative risk behind its form.

Its interview structure could have created distance between it and its readers, but instead it creates intimacy. By allowing characters to contradict each other, reveal different versions of events, and reinterpret the past through their interviews, TJR transforms the story’s format into a meditation on memory and truth, as well as intimacy.

The novel reminded me that a novel’s form is not just a container for its story, and that the way a story is told can completely change what readers experience.

What stayed with me was the realization that a novel’s structure can become a force that shapes meaning, emotion, and understanding.

Also Read:

• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton
  An oral history led by a music journalist digging into the complicated past of an iconic rock duo.

• World War Z by Max Brooks
  A collection of post-invasion interview transcripts from survivors of a global zombie war.

• Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
  An extensive, tape-recorded interview between a vampire and a young reporter.

Reflection on Creative Risks and Style

Reading these books alongside each other made me think about an important truth worth considering— that creative risk looks different depending on where a writer is in their journey. For a debut author, a risk may entail attempting something no one has seen before. But for an established author, a risk may entail refusing to repeat what made them successful in the first place or trying to change or evolve what they want to write.

Still, for any artist, taking risks usually requires listening closely enough to their own intuition to know when a familiar path is no longer the right one, as the stories that endure are often the ones where the creator followed curiosity instead of comfort.

Final Reflections on the Books that Made Me See Something Differently

When I look back at the books that have stayed with me in recent years, I realize that the stories I remember most are not always the ones with the most surprising plots or the most beautifully constructed sentences, though surprising plots and beautiful prose certainly don’t hurt. Instead, they’re the ones that changed the way I understood something I thought I already knew about others, the world, or the creative process itself.

Some of the books above deepened my empathy by inviting me into lives and experiences different from my own. Others challenged my understanding of history by reminding me that every event contains countless individual stories, many of which have been overlooked or forgotten. Some transformed the way I think about creativity itself, showing me that the most meaningful work often comes from writers who are willing to take risks, be vulnerable, question expectations, and explore unfamiliar territory.

What ultimately connected these stories to me, whether fictional or not, was their ability to expand my perspective. They reminded me that people are more complicated than the roles we tend to assign to them, that places hold memories and perspectives beyond what we can immediately see, and that every person carries a narrative shaped by experiences we may never fully know or realize without stories like this being told.

This is one of the many, many reasons I continue returning to books. Reading allows us to practice curiosity and better understand creativity as we build greater empathy for others. It gives us the opportunity to step outside our own assumptions and consider another person’s fears, hopes, choices, and circumstances. A powerful story does not require us to agree with every character or share every experience they have, but it does ask us to pay much closer attention.

The books that have changed me most as of late, as you can see, are not necessarily full of dense, lyrical prose, and aren’t always fueled by the need to impress committees giving awards. Instead, they are the ones that leave me with better questions about identity, belonging, justice, creativity, and what it means to not only be human but a human who writes and wants to connect with others via writing and storytelling. And they have become part of how I want to see and experience the world.

Most stories can usually entertain us for a few hours, but the right story can subtly reshape the way we notice, understand, and connect with the lives and world around us.

As we continue exploring this month’s theme of creative courage, I think it’s important to take note of those stories that make us see the world in different ways, don’t you?

Next week we’ll be turning toward how and why we should share our creative work, and the role creative courage plays in that. So, stay tuned, and feel free to share your own creative work with us!

I’d love to hear from you!

What is one book that changed the way you see something? What perspective did it give you that you still carry today? Let me know in the comments or chat.

Join the Chat

Leave a comment

And please don’t forget to like and share this post if you enjoyed it so others can enjoy it too. Thank you!

Share

Buy me a coffee to say thanks

Want to read with us?

The Egalitarian Book Club is currently reading Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond.

Week 1 (July 1-5 )— Prologue- Chapter 1

Week 2 (July 6-12)— Chapters 2-4

Week 3 (July 13- 19)— Chapters 5-7

Week 4 (July 20-31) — Finish Book

July 31st: Discuss entire book in Substack chat thread

Join the Buddy Read

Continue Exploring July’s Creative Courage Theme

This week’s Posts: Taking Creative Risks

Taking Creative Risks: Writing Prompts to Build Creative Courage

Beneath the Armor

Should writers prioritize creative risks or readers’ expectations?

20 Books That Prove Creative Risks Are Worth Taking

A Poetic Risk

Balancing Artistic Vision and Creative Risks with Readers' Expectations

Week 1: Beginning Before You Feel Ready

Beginning Before You Feel Ready: Writing Prompts

Between Two Worlds

Do writers need to feel ready before they begin a new project?

The Art of Beginning Again

Beginnings and endings are linked in a lot of ways…

Why Beginning Feels So Difficult, But Doesn’t Have to Be

Books That Made Me Want to Write and Take Creative Risks

Subscribe now

Consider going more in depth with this month’s theme with July’s Creative Courage Writing Collection.

The writing collection is designed to help you explore creative courage from different angles: discovering your voice, strengthening your craft, experimenting with new approaches, and reflecting on the writer you are becoming.

The free posts that will be published every day this month will explore the outward side of creative courage—beginning, risking, and sharing— and should complement this collection quite well, which invites you to go much deeper into the internal work of creativity with 30 guided writing prompts and craft exercises, reflections, as well as three options for guided monthly writing challenges for those who want to go even further than that.

Note: Paid subscribers have access to the full archive, including previous writing prompts, discussions, and reading lists, as well as full access to the community chat and Daily Drafters Exclusives writing collections.

Get 30-Day Free Trial

Share Daily Drafts & Dialogues

© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 2: Taking Creative Risks

Read more

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 2: Taking Creative Risks

Read more

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 2: Taking Creative Risks

Read more

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 2: Taking Creative Risks

Read more

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 2: Taking Creative Risks

Read more

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 2: Taking Creative Risks

Read more

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 1: Beginning Before You Feel Ready

Read more

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 1: Beginning Before You Feel Ready

Read more

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 1: Beginning Before You Feel Ready

Read more

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 1: Beginning Before You Feel Ready

Read more

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 1: Beginning Before You Feel Ready

Read more

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 1: Beginning Before You Feel Ready

Read more

July Theme: Creative Courage

Big Question: What does it take to begin, risk, and share what you create?

Week 1: Beginning Before You Feel Ready

Read more